Pubdate: Thu, 26 Dec 2013
Source: Guardian, The (CN PI)
Copyright: 2013 The Guardian, Charlottetown Guardian Group Incorporated
Contact:  http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/174
Author: James Keller
Page: A8

MEDIA ARE NOT TALKING STRAIGHT ABOUT MARIJUANA, SAYS AUTHOR

Canada's tighter drug laws go against world trend: writer

VANCOUVER - As it turns out, Nov. 6, 2012, was a big day for marijuana
laws.

Voters in Colorado and Washington state approved initiatives to
legalize pot, setting the stage for the regulated production and sale
of the drug. Several other jurisdictions in the U. S. have since
followed suit.

In Canada, the same day two American states were effectively
abandoning part of the war on drugs, provisions of a new federal law
came into effect that imposed strict mandatory minimums for drug-
related crimes, including marijuana production. The contrast, says
University of Victoria professor Susan Boyd, could not have been greater.

"This new law and our revived war on drugs in Canada is so contrary to
what's going on around the world," says Boyd, who specializes in drug
law and drug policy.

"It seemed like Canada was veering towards a very punitive model while
the rest of the world was taking a closer look at mandatory minimums
and abandoning them."

But the revisions to Canada's drug laws - contained in the Safe
Streets and Communities Act, or Bill C- 10, as it was previously known
- - did not happen in a vacuum, says Boyd. Instead, Boyd argues in a
forthcoming book that Canada's recent tough-on-crime approach to
drugs is, in part, the product of decades of skewed media coverage and
police messaging that has routinely exaggerated the dangers of the
marijuana industry and its connection to organized crime.

For the book, titled "Killer Weed: Marijuana Grow Ops, Media, and 
Justice," Boyd examined 2,500 articles from four major daily newspapers 
in British Columbia from 1995 to 2009.

She found news coverage about cannabis enforcement in B. C. frequently
contained inaccurate information or exaggerated claims about the size
and scope of the underground marijuana industry, the sorts of people
associated with grow-ops, and the industry's connection to gangs.

Assertions by police - particularly the RCMP, which is responsible for
policing in much of B. C. - were left unchallenged, she says, and
politicians, in turn, relied on such misinformation to push for
stricter drug laws.

For example, the news articles she examined repeatedly asserted
marijuana grow-ops are inextricable linked to gangs and other
criminal organizations. Police spokespeople were frequently quoted
explaining that modern-day grow-ops are not "mom and pop"
operations. But Boyd says the federal government's own research does
not support that claim.

She cited a Justice Department study that was completed in 2011,
obtained by a reporter through an access to information request, that
examined a random sample of 500 marijuana grow operations. Of those,
just five per cent had apparent links to gangs or organized crime.
"This study wasn't released by our federal government, and you could
see why," says Boyd.

"It doesn't fit with their Safe Streets and Communities Act, which
frames marijuana grow-ops as always being associated with organized
crime and gangs. I would say it's probably the reverse." Luc Bes
Chamds poses with social worker Raymond Tremblay, dressed as Santa
Claus, at the Christmas lunch at the Shepherds of Good Hope in Ottawa
on Wednesday.
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